Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Kenneth Katzman
Specialist in Middle Eastern AffairsThe capacity, transparency, and legitimacy of
Afghan governance are considered crucial to Afghan stability after
U.S.-led NATO forces turn over the security mission to Afghan leadership by
the end of 2014. The size and capability of the Afghan governing structure has
increased significantly since the Taliban regime fell in late 2001, but
the government remains weak and rampant with corruption. Even as the
government has struggled to widen its writ, President Hamid Karzai has
concentrated substantial presidential authority through his powers of appointment
at all levels. But, he is constitutionally term-limited; presidential and
provincial elections are scheduled for April 5, 2014, and Afghanistan is
beginning to transition from the Karzai era. Several major figures—some
close to Karzai and others opposed—have registered their tickets, several
of which include significant faction leaders long accused of human rights abuses.
Some candidates are concerned that Karzai will use state machinery to favor a
particular candidate. Fraud in two successive elections (for president in
2009 and parliament in 2010) was extensively documented, but Afghan
officials, scrutinized by opposition ties, civil society organizations, and key
donor countries, have taken some steps to improve election oversight for the
April 2014 elections.

Fears about the election process are fanned by the scant progress in reducing
widespread nepotism and other forms of corruption. President Karzai has
accepted U.S. help to build emerging anti-corruption institutions, but these
same bodies have faltered from lack of support from senior Afghan
government leaders who oppose prosecuting their political allies. At a donors’ conference
in Tokyo on July 8, 2012, donors pledged to aid Afghanistan’s economy through
at least 2017, on the condition that Afghanistan takes concrete,
verifiable action to rein in corruption. Afghan progress on that issue was
assessed relatively unfavorably at the end of a Tokyo process review meeting in
Kabul attended by major donors on July 3, 2013.

No matter how the Afghan leadership succession process works out, there is
concern among many observers that governance will founder as the United
States and its partners reduce their involvement in Afghanistan. An
informal power structure consisting of regional and ethnic leaders have
always been at least as significant a factor in governance as the formal power structure,
and they will likely bring the votes of their ethnic and regional followers to
the presidential tickets some of them have joined. The faction leaders
also lead or can recruit armed fighters, and several are reviving their
armed militias in the event the end of the international security mission in
2014 produces instability. However, an increase in the influence of faction leaders
could produce even more corruption, arbitrary administration of justice, and
human rights abuses than has been the case since the international
intervention in 2001.

President Karzai is appealing to nationalist sentiment to attract Taliban
support to rejoin Afghan politics, but Afghan civil society activists,
particularly women’s groups, assert that a full reintegration of the
Taliban into Afghan politics could reverse some of the human and women’s rights
gains since 2001. Those gains have come despite the persistence of traditional
attitudes and Islamic conservatism in many parts of Afghanistan—attitudes
that cause the judicial and political system to tolerate child marriages
and imprisonment of women who flee domestic violence. Islam and tradition has
also frequently led to persecution of converts from Islam to Christianity, and
to curbs on the sale of alcohol and on Western-oriented programming in the
Afghan media. See also CRS Report RL30588, Afghanistan:
Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy, by Kenneth
Katzman; and CRS Report R41484, Afghanistan:
U.S. Rule of Law and Justice Sector Assistance, by Liana Sun Wyler
and Kenneth Katzman. .

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